Today in Politics, Bulletin 440. 8/14/26
… Since MeidasTouch began reporting on conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, messages have poured in to us from military families and service members across multiple ships and even multiple branches. Taken together, they paint a picture of a crisis that extends well beyond a single carrier. All sources below are being kept anonymous to protect them and their loved ones from retaliation.
… One active-duty service member currently deployed alongside the Lincoln reached out to Meidas to confirm that what’s being reported is real, and that it isn’t isolated to the Lincoln alone. “They are not making anything up on the Lincoln,” the service member wrote. “We have it bad as well, but not quite as bad as them yet. It’s only month 5 going on 6 for us, but eventually it will be bad. We have not seen land since being out here due to the Iran conflict.”
… One parent whose son recently returned from 11 months aboard the Lincoln, after finishing 5 years with an F/A-18 fire squadron known as the “Top Hatters,” described conditions that had deteriorated badly by the time he got off the ship.
… Early in the deployment, the ship’s water system went down entirely, leaving sailors unable to shower or wash their clothes. When the system was eventually restored, showers had to be tightly rationed. Supplies ran low repeatedly, made worse when resupply ships were unable to bring materials back to the carrier. By the time this sailor left the ship, the parent said, toilets had backed up and overflowed, leaving roughly half a foot of human waste across restroom floors used by around 200 sailors at any given time.
… A separate message came from someone whose brother’s fiancée serves aboard the USS George H.W. Bush, a different carrier than the Lincoln. She was recently back in the U.S. for a family emergency and was able to describe conditions directly. “They have virtually no food, water, or soap,” the message relayed. “They’ve been out at sea for 136 days with no end in sight. Morale is low and everyone is miserable. It’s heartbreaking.”
… Finally, a wife of a service member currently aboard the Lincoln wrote to Meidas to say her husband, who has been following the coverage of conditions on the ship, told her they “desperately need more people to speak up about what is happening.”
… She said that when sailors ask their commanding officer for updates, they’ve been told not to worry about updates and to “just worry about today,” and that the crew is exhausted, getting no days off, and running on only a few hours of sleep. Her husband also raised serious concerns about leadership aboard the ship, telling her bluntly that “he doesn’t care about his people.” She said sailors with more than 20 years of service are calling this the worst deployment they’ve ever experienced.
… “I am sharing this because these sailors need someone to speak for them,” she wrote. “They are exhausted and feel like they are not being heard, and they desperately need help.”
… Trump was asked about the multiple media reports today about the Lincoln as he was about to board Air Force One to a rally in NY before heading to his country club at Bedminster for another weekend of golf: Q - “Family members of service members are concerned about conditions on the Lincoln. Trump: No they’re not. Reporter: Has the deployment gone on too long? Trump: No, no, no. Not nearly long enough. Thank you everybody.”
… He then walked away.
… Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA): “Respectfully, Mr. President, I’d like to see you survive a week on that ship.”
… Vaughn Hillyard, WH correspondent for MS NOW: “The president is disputing the fact that families of service members on the USS Lincoln are concerned about their loved ones. He should talk to his Navy Secretary who was confronted by these families face to face a week ago.”
… Defense and security analyst Babak Taghvee: “These are images sent by US Navy sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to their families, showing the small portions and poor-quality food they say they have been receiving during the ship’s exceptionally long deployment.”
… “The conditions aboard the carrier have triggered growing concern among sailors’ families, who have complained about food and supply shortages, deteriorating living conditions, and the psychological toll of spending months at sea with extremely limited opportunities for shore leave. Families and members of Congress have pressed Pete Hegseth for answers.”
… WSJ: “Trump has directed the Navy to tear out a complex system for launching fighter jets from its aircraft carriers and instead go back to using steam catapults, a move Navy officials have fought for years and will likely cost billions in extra dollars.
US officials say Trump signed a national security memorandum today directing the change, which would involve removing the electromagnetic catapult system used by the ships in the Gerald R. Ford class of carriers.”
… “Since Trump said in an interview with Time in 2017 that he told the Navy to go back to ‘goddamn steam,’ top Navy and industry leaders have resisted the move because of the enormous expense to tear out such a complex system that was integral to the design of the Ford class. General Atomics, the company that builds the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear for the Ford class, said the decision to revert to steam ‘warrants careful reconsideration.’”
… “The company was awarded a contract to build the catapults and arresting gear for the Doris Miller in 2023. Its work is nearly 50% complete and ‘changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks,’ the company said in a statement.
… “The decision will have broader implications for carrier readiness, national security, and US technological superiority, potentially creating opportunities for adversaries to close the capability gap. It also comes at a time when strengthening the US supplier industrial base is a national priority, making workforce stability, production capacity, and the ability to sustain critical technologies more important than ever.”
… Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ): “I’ve launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot and even I wouldn’t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships. Trump should stick to what he knows best - ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit.”
… With a big chunk of his audience turning against Trump, Joe Rogan is now pretending that he just discovered Trump is corrupt:
“This govt has done some shit that no govt has ever done before and one of them is the crypto stuff. The crypto stuff is nuts. Trump has made billions in crypto. Then you got his sons and his sons are involved in these weird business deals and there’s a lot of money flowing around that you could dig in and start arresting people.”
“There’s so much money now that these corporations are holding that they have so much influence over politicians. These tech oligarchs are really in control of a giant chunk of the narrative that shapes society, shapes our economy, shapes everything. There’s so much going on right now that’s being manipulated by a small amount of people. It’s kind of fucking nuts and nobody saw it coming.”
… We saw it coming.
Guest Shane Gillis: “Trump’s selling faster access to his tweets and then you can bet on the markets. It’s literally insider trading. Rogan: Wait a minute, is that real? How is that legal? Who’s telling him this is a good idea? $100K to get early tweets? That’s literally crazy. He’s just on a grab.”
… Politico: “The BBC is seeking to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in connection with a $10 billion defamation lawsuit the president is pressing against the UK broadcaster. Lawyers for the BBC say the Trump family members ‘without question have personal knowledge’ about Trump’s intentions in delivering the speech at the heart of the case: his Jan. 6, 2021, address to supporters at the Ellipse as the Capitol attack was getting underway.”
… “The president’s lawsuit alleges that a BBC documentary aired in the UK in 2024 defamed him by splicing together distant parts of the speech to make it sound like he was endorsing violence. The BBC has apologized for the editing but denies that it is valid grounds for a suit.”
… “BBC’s attorneys say Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were present as the president revised his speech and were on hand at the Ellipse as he spoke. The network’s lawyers also say Kushner drafted a proposed statement for the president condemning the violence. The subpoenas seek both deposition testimony and relevant documents from the Trump family members.”
… Investing.com: “In a significant development for the US economy, retail sales have experienced an unexpected decline. Retail sales, which serve as a critical indicator of consumer spending and overall economic health, fell by 0.6%. This decline is notably below the forecasted growth of 0.1% and marks a deterioration from the previous month’s increase of 0.2%.”
… “The drop in retail sales highlights a potential cooling in consumer spending, a key driver of the US economy. As retail sales account for a substantial portion of economic activity, this downturn could signal broader economic challenges ahead. The unexpected decline has raised concerns about consumer confidence and the potential impact on future economic growth.”
… “Analysts had anticipated a modest increase in retail sales, with a forecast of 0.1%, reflecting expectations of steady consumer demand despite various economic headwinds. However, the actual figure of -0.6% indicates a more significant contraction in consumer spending than previously anticipated.”
… “The latest retail sales data also compares unfavorably to the previous month’s figure of 0.2%, which had suggested a more resilient consumer sector. The reversal in retail sales growth may prompt economists and policymakers to reassess their outlooks and consider potential measures to stimulate consumer activity.”
… Bloomberg: “For most of his second term, Trump has been arguing that the ‘golden age’ he promised for America's economy is already here. There's hardly been much evidence that voters agreed. Now, with midterm elections less than 3 months away and campaigning poised to get underway in earnest, the gap has become impossible to ignore.”
… “And there are signs that's weighing on Trump's Republican Party as it fights to retain control of Congress. The president's rosy view is running into anxiety about the cost of living and fallout from the war in Iran. The current environment represents a reckoning for Trump, who relied on the economy as key political strength during his first term. Now, it's shaping up as a significant liability.”
… “Just 39% approve of Trump's job performance, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Even fewer, 30%, approve of his handling of inflation. A 31% plurality of Americans in a new Economist/YouGov poll listed inflation and prices as their most important issue, 17 percentage points more than the second-most important topic, jobs and the economy.”
… Trump was asked today about the state of the economy: “The economy is doing unbelievably from the standpoint of Wall Street.”
… From the standpoint of everyone else, it sucks.
No Bulletin tomorrow because I’m off Saturdays. A beautiful summer day in Maine is forecast for tomorrow - 78 degrees and sunny. We are hoping to do a fun kayak excursion on a new river we haven’t been on but my wife is feeling a little under the weather today so we will see.
I will be back on Sunday night with the Bulletin recapping the entire weekend. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.
… Trump was in NY today to do a rally for the Republican candidate for governor, Bruce Blakeman:
“These young beautiful girls in the WH, you know, they come in. These young, these gorgeous, beautiful girls. They say ‘thank you, sir’.”
“For you to pay a TINY little bit more for your gasoline, just remember that you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a nuclear weapon. Remember that when you’re paying $4. It’s OK. I’ll never apologize, I did the right thing.”
… I don’t remember Trump saying during the campaign that we would be paying more for gas as a sacrifice for the latest Republican war.
“After we finish defeating Iran, I will be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”
To Blakeman: “If you lose with my endorsement, you're going to be ashamed for
